


Rumor Propagation

by Guede



Series: Theory [14]
Category: Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Hornblower (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bickering, Derogatory Language, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Flirting, Getting to Know Each Other, Guilt, Humor, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Philosophy, Polyamory, Roommates, Secrets, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:28:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Tristan's advisor gets caught in a bit of professional trouble...and what does this have to do with Arthur's problems? More than it looks like.
Relationships: Arthur Castus/Guinevere/Lancelot, Galahad (King Arthur 2004)/Mariette (Hornblower), Gawain/Tristan (King Arthur 2004)
Series: Theory [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058675
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Heard It Through The Grapevine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2006, for LJ user trin_chardin in thanks for the fanart.

“When’s the last time we had a weekend off at the same time?” Guinevere asked. It’d been about fifteen seconds since she’d flopped down on the couch and the cushions were still sinking beneath her. The springs were wearing out and they needed to get new pillows; she made a note of it.

Lancelot’s sprawl in the armchair widened and slid forward so his knees just touched the coffee table. “Oh…I’d say about a month.”

“Really.” She reached beneath her head, twisted out the big clip that held her chignon together and then tossed that on the table. She used her other hand to muss up her hair till it was comfortable to lie on. “What’s today?”

“Not a day where Arthur should be working late. Especially since I informed him three times last night and you told him five times _over breakfast_ that we’d be coming home,” Lancelot said. For some reason, he made it sound as if she’d been doing some horrendous crime, badgering Arthur like that.

He’d been bothering Arthur more, Guinevere almost said. He’d kept waking Arthur up to say that, while she’d merely mentioned it whenever Arthur had dropped his newspaper long enough for her to know she had his attention.

Groaning a bit, Lancelot rolled over on his side and fumbled for the phone. He couldn’t reach it, so he twisted around till he got out his cell. “All right, I’ll call him and you call Tristan.”

“Tristan?”

Lancelot rolled his eyes.

Oh. Well, he would assume she was just motivated by jealousy since he was a bloody idiot. Guinevere turned herself over and reached down to the floor to snag her purse. “I don’t mean it like that, you prick. I meant why am I calling Tristan? Don’t you think that’s jumping to conclusions?”

“No,” Lancelot muttered, shooting her a look. He righted himself and flipped open his phone, then put it down to frown at it. His thumb hovered over the buttons, impatiently waggling.

Even when he wasn’t trying to be, he was hopelessly perverted. And yes, the Arthur-problem was a constant background goad for all of them, but leaping at every alarm wasn’t going to do anything but wear them out so when the real thing happened, they’d be too exhausted to notice. “Hang on, let me check my Palm,” Guinevere said. “He might’ve…yes, he did message. Says that he’s very sorry but he’ll be late because there was a disciplinary incident on campus that he’s got to see to.”

“Disciplinary incident?” Lancelot dithered a few more seconds before he finally snapped the phone shut and levered himself out of the armchair. The way he did that, he looked a good deal like a stick insect that’d fallen on its back and, after much stiff flailing, had managed to claw its way back onto its feet. It really was inexplicable how he could go from dancer-grace to utter absurdity in the blink of an eye. “Was there a fight or something?”

“Doesn’t say. Alcohol violation, I’m betting. It’s a university, not a sports club,” Guinevere said. She dropped her Palm into her purse, zipped that up, and then began the process of dragging herself away from a well-deserved rest. For weeks and weeks they’d been working themselves to the bone, and now that they were almost ready to hand over Clayton and the rest of the diamond-smugglers to the prosecuting side of Interpol, they could finally take a breather.

Except Arthur was late, and it wasn’t really a breather if Lancelot was going to fidget incessantly at home, coming up with crazier and crazier nightmare scenarios to explain the other man’s absence. So she supposed they were going to Avalon.

“I’m—”

“You’re not driving,” Guinevere snapped.

“I’m _sober_. And I got seven hours of sleep last night.” Rather lame protests from Lancelot, who knew perfectly well how wound up he tended to get about Arthur lately. “Oh, fine.”

As they heaved themselves along the hall, she ran her hands a few times through her hair, then pulled it back into a low ponytail. She checked herself in passing in a mirror, then gave up and just flipped her hair over her shoulder. It didn’t look as polished as she would have preferred, but if she pulled out a brush, then Lancelot might decide to make a dash for the driver’s seat anyway. “And remember, unless they’re involved in an international crime ring, we don’t have jurisdiction on campus. So don’t—”

“I’ll leave my gun locked in the glovebox, all right? You’d better, too. Never know when one of these idiots might make a snatch for it, thinking they’re in a bloody rap music video,” Lancelot grumbled. “Honestly, Guin, I’m not some trigger-happy cowboy.”

“No, you’re edgy. Which worries me more. Look, the worst-case scenario’s probably that some moron got caught plagiarizing and is giving Arthur a headache, all right?” Guinevere paused at the door to the garage to swap shoes for a lower heel. Not that she thought it would, but on the off-chance that things did get energetic, she wasn’t about to get stuck in the damned lawn again.

Lancelot made a whole series of noises of varying degrees of rudeness, but finally ended in a half-acknowledging mumble of Guinevere’s point. “So we’ll just stand around and get in the way and visually remind Arthur that he’s got responsibilities at home too, like screwing us till we forget it was also his turn to cook dinner today?”

“No! We’re going to check on him and then offer to act as objective observers for whatever happens to holding him up!”

“Guin, you’re a top-flight mistress of spin,” Lancelot grinned. “I do love you for that.”

She smacked him, then stomped out the door. “Prat.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t make him any less right. Damn him, he couldn’t even concede a point to her without a fit of pique. He’d better let her drive, because right now she wasn’t in the mood to put up with any more of his pissy-bitch attitude.

* * *

Arthur wasn’t in his office, but after some initial skirmishing, Vanora directed them to the…forensic science department. Which raised Guin’s eyebrow, and Lancelot had to agree about that. He knew she should’ve called Tristan after all.

“He graduated over three months ago!” Guin snorted.

“Well, maybe some of his chickens are coming home to roost—what?” Lancelot irritably looked at her.

Guin pressed her hand harder to her mouth, but that didn’t do any more to hide her grin. It certainly didn’t muffle her giggles at all. “Oh, nothing. You’re just absolutely adorable when you try to use a country metaphor.”

“Oh, like you’ve got much of a rural background yourself. Having an aunt who lives in Brighton doesn’t count, you know.” He pulled open the door and walked on through it. A blast of cold air hit him and he paused just inside to toss on his coat again.

As soon as she came in, Guin was consulting the directory on the wall. “No, I don’t, so I don’t pretend to. Let’s see…second floor, turn left.”

Not that she waited for him to lead the way. No, Guin went charging right ahead, but Lancelot wasn’t too fussed about that. If she wanted to exhaust herself even more, he wasn’t going to stop her; all he knew was that he’d walked miles of hallways today and so he was fine with ambling along, checking out offices and classrooms for any suspicious persons.

It was easy enough to find the place, given the crowd in front. Arthur was about a half-head taller than everyone else so Lancelot spotted him right away: leaning against the wall, hands in pockets, looking mildly bemused. A tiny, tiny little valve opened up inside Lancelot’s chest and he just let all the built-up anxiety whoosh out of him on a long exhale. He and Guin were still rather far away, but Arthur’s head came up anyway.

Arthur blinked, then slipped through the group of people to meet them halfway. “You got my message? I’m so sorry the notice was so late—”

“Oh, it’s fine. I got it, but Lancelot thought it was a bit short and wanted to come down,” Guin oh-so-nicely said.

“Thought we’d ask if you wanted us to bring you dinner, since we’re both too beat to cook. Then Vanora directed us this way, and Guin got curious.” Lancelot death-glared her, ignored her return death-glare, and gazed over Arthur’s shoulder to check out the little gathering.

They were hanging about a lounge area in front of what was probably a small conference room. Galahad and Mariette were all cozied up on a couch…physically, at least, since they seemed to be in the middle of a heated discussion. Tristan was sitting on the couch-arm farthest from Lancelot, looking surprisingly moody; Gawain was perched on a table in front of him and quietly talking. Somebody’s secretary was wandering around in the hallway beyond, messing about with papers and trying not to look like she was eavesdropping. There was also a boy and a girl Lancelot didn’t recognize. The boy was unusually pale and the girl was a pretty South Asian, and they both looked like undergrads.

“So…what is going on?” Guin asked with a toss of her hair. A bit too much like a shampoo commercial to be subtle.

“I’m not sure, to be honest.” Arthur glanced towards Lancelot, then behind himself. He nodded towards the new ones. “Some kind of incident occurred between Mark Kernyw—Tristan’s old advisor—and Dr. Morgan, whom you’ve met, just after a lecture. That’s Jack Hammond, Galahad’s roommate, and Jess, a classmate of his. They’re both in that philosophy of science class Gawain’s a GSI for this term, and all three apparently witnessed some of it. Oh, I forgot to mention, Kernyw was a guest lecturer for that today, and it was after that.”

That went a ways towards explaining everyone else, though exactly why Tristan was present still wasn’t clear. Galahad was probably along for moral support for someone, Mariette because she seemed like the inquisitive type, and Arthur because his grad student and department were tangentially involved.

“Are they calling on Tristan to vouch for his advisor?” Guin asked in a low tone.

“I’d…rather not talk about—” Arthur cut himself off and turned around. The conference room door had just opened and now a grave Merlin leaned out of it, looking about. He quickly saw Arthur and waved him over.

Arthur obligingly went over, which left Guin and Lancelot standing around and the others staring curiously at them. Jack Hammond coughed to the side, then offered a hesitant smile. “Hello.”

Well, that explained why he was so pale: he sounded like he’d spent most of his life divided between western Ireland and England. “’lo,” Lancelot replied, walking over. He ignored the warning hiss from Guin and smiled broadly. “So what’s on today?”

“Er…who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Jess asked. She put her hands behind her back and uncertainly flicked her gaze from Lancelot to Guinevere and then back again. London girl. How Arthur always managed to find the Brits in New York City was one of those minor mysteries, like why buttered bread always hit greasy-side down.

Galahad snorted and reached out to give Jack a whack on the arm, which probably was supposed to be encouraging. “Oh, don’t mind them. They’re just Arthur’s—”

Both Mariette and Gawain suddenly had a loud, prolonged fit of coughing, and additionally Mariette flopped forward to smush her breasts over Galahad’s mouth. He looked rather less pleased about this than he really should have.

Tristan briefly put up his hand to rub at his mouth, then dropped it. As usual, he handled a tricky situation with a minimum of words and a maximum of private amusement. “Jack, Jess—Lancelot and Guinevere. They live with Arthur.”

Jess got it first and her eyes went a bit wide. She started to sit down, then shook herself and instead grabbed the top of the chair, twisting it around. “Um, do you want to sit down? They said it’ll be a while.”

“Right, exactly,” Jack said, scrambling to grab and turn another chair. He kept glancing at Jess and at Galahad, as if they were supposed to be giving him advice.

“Thanks,” Guin beamed, taking one. She made a sound in her throat that wasn’t nearly as nice till Lancelot finally sat as well. Then she resumed smiling at Jess. “So, what happened here? All we know’s that we’ll probably have to bring dinner over here and cram it down Arthur’s throat. Damned man, he really never takes care of…”

Lancelot just sat back and watched how the others took Guinevere’s little act. It seemed as if Jack and Mariette might be buying it; Jess still looked a bit bemused. Gawain maybe was taking half the bait. Galahad and Tristan were all but rolling their eyes—never mind, Galahad _was_ rolling his eyes.

“Kind of hard to say,” Galahad finally said. He sounded a touch annoyed, so he’d probably spoken up just to make Guin stop. “Gawain says—”

“I’ll tell it, if anyone’s going to,” Gawain interrupted. “Look, I don’t know a lot because I just walked into the middle of it…”


	2. A Sequence of Coincidences

Gawain was just about ready to go when two students walked in with armfuls of books. He started to sigh, then took a second look, blinking hard.

Jack looked just as surprised. “I didn’t know you were—well, you said you were a Philosophy major, but I didn’t know you were GSI for this class.”

“Are you taking this class? I…let me check my roster…” Of course, that was deep at the bottom of Gawain’s bag that he’d just packed, crumpled beneath binders and books and that guide to getting a dual-degree in Education that basically was a fucking book all by itself. After about twenty seconds of his hand getting mauled, Gawain just resigned himself and upended his bag onto the table. He sucked at a couple papercuts on his hand as he rummaged through the mess. “It doesn’t really matter too much, but since it’s the first week of hours, we’re supposed to mark off who showed up so we can see how many waitlisted students can get in.”

“Well…I’d be still waitlisted, probably,” Jack sheepishly said. He dug around in his backpack, then came up with a paper that he handed to Gawain. “I just got a message saying there was room for me. Printed it off and hurried down to see if I could catch anybody.”

Gawain glanced over the sheet, then passed it back. Everything looked okay, so he picked out a pen from his pile of stuff and wrote in Jack’s name at the bottom of his discussion list. “I do remember you, though. Jess, right?” he said.

Startled pause. “Oh! Yes, right,” Jess replied, sounding a bit flustered. She and Jack both had pretty uncommon accents for Avalon, so it was hard to forget them. “I just had a couple questions on the readings for next week. I’m sorry I’m late; I’m a transfer and I just got here about a week ago. Don’t quite know where everything is yet.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay. Go ahead and have a seat.” Well, there went getting home early and starting dinner so Tristan could eat something good on his day off. Then again, if Gawain couldn’t put up with this kind of thing, he might as well give up on the Education degree. He did his best to smile at the obviously nervous pair, and after a moment his mouth didn’t feel so stiff. “I’m pretty impressed. You only got here a week ago, but you’re already ahead on the readings?”

“Eh, well, I’m on the women’s soccer team. You learn pretty fast to stay ahead or else you end up trying to write a paper on the psychological implications of oh, I don’t know, _Mrs. Dalloway_ on the feminist movement on the night bus back from an out-of-towner.” Jess plopped herself down and began taking her stack of books and notebooks apart. She paused to scoot over for Jack, who shyly grinned a thanks, then pulled out a page covered in miniscule scribblings.

For a moment, Gawain was reminded of Galahad back when the other man had been working on his natural sciences credits in undergrad. Galahad could do things with obscure math formulas that Gawain couldn’t have understood if he’d worked on them his whole life, but for some reason, basic chemistry had nearly car-wrecked him. He’d managed to scrape through mostly because he literally wrote down everything the professor said and got all the irrelevant concept questions thrown in just to mix things up a little. It’d taken him three weeks to get back to normal, and his handwriting was still recovering.

“The first one’s an easy—oh, I’m sorry, did you have one? You should go first,” Jess said, turning towards Jack. She seemed pretty easygoing, so maybe the whole handwriting thing wasn’t a bad omen.

She knocked her pencil with her hand as she did and sent it onto the floor. If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have had to go diving after it with a muffled snort about how clumsy she was and she wouldn’t have missed the way Jack went red and shook his head a little too hard. He tried to say something, got it stuck in his throat and coughed into his hand. “Oh, no, you first. I can wait.”

“But you already helped me find this place! No, really, you first.” Jess smiled at Jack and even gave him a little encouraging wave.

Poor guy really was too pale to even bother trying not to look like he wasn’t blushing. His saving grace was that Jess seemed to be just as clueless as he was. “Well…I just was wondering about our study questions. I don’t really understand what the third one is asking for.”

“Okay…” Luckily, that sheet was right on top. Gawain checked out the question, thanking God he read pretty fast so they wouldn’t notice he actually hadn’t looked at them yet. “Well, what do you think it’s asking? We’ll just take it from there.”

“Um…” Jack riffled his copy between his fingers, then put his arm up on the table and pushed at his hair. “That we’re supposed to be summarizing Kuhn’s theory?”

Jess flipped open her notebook, then stopped and squinted a little at her notes. “I thought we were supposed to pick a scientific discovery and talk about how Kuhn’s theory describes it.”

Technically, Gawain was off in ten minutes, but this was going to take a bit longer than that. He suppressed another sigh and picked up his pencil. “You’re both pretty close…”

* * *

About twenty minutes later, it looked like Gawain had managed to get everything straightened out for Jess, but Jack was taking a little more work. He seemed smart enough to understand things, but he wasn’t exactly paying attention. And even though philosophy of science was a lot less abstract and easier to grasp than most branches of philosophy, it still required someone to have a short-term memory. Which Jack apparently didn’t have if it didn’t involve Jess.

“I probably have it somewhere in here,” Jack was currently saying. He held his notes up to his nose in a way that completely didn’t keep him from staring at Jess, who was busily packing up. “I just need to read through it all—sorry, I’m just not concentrating today.”

Well, at least he admitted it, said a little snarky voice in Gawain’s head. Though honestly, it was funny and kind of cute to watch the two of them. Kind of reminded Gawain of a fifteen-year-old Galahad back in L. A., trying to pick up girls before he filled out enough to get them to buy into the ego-tripping. “Well, feel free to email if you think of any other questions. Or, you know, bug Galahad. He’ll help, so just ignore the bitching. He usually stops after a minute.”

Jack laughed a little, and for the first time since he’d walked into the room, he didn’t sound nervous. Probably because he wasn’t paying attention to Jess, and that was a shame because she was grinning along…not like she was really digging him yet, but at least she didn’t look like she wanted to pet him reassuringly on the head. Which in Gawain’s experience dinged up pride more than a flat turn-down did.

Gawain still had to get his stuff together, so he stayed behind while the other two went out. He could hear Jess asking Jack in a nice, friendly-kidding tone, “So what was that about? You’ve got a secret line into the teaching staff or something?”

“Oh, no, not really. I’m just sharing a flat with his friend, who’s also a Philosophy major. I think. Galahad’s doing some kind of double with Econ.”

“That…sounds really hard, but kind of cool. It’d take so long, though. Hey…do you know how to get to here? This is where I’m supposed to pick up my gear.”

“Sure. Actually, I could—ah, show you. It’s not that far out of my way…didn’t you used to play for Santa Clara, by the way?”

“Oh, my God.” Jess’ blush came through her voice loud and clear. “How’d you know that?”

Once everything was in his bag, Gawain slung it over his shoulder. He kicked the chairs back into position while sorting through his keys, then stepped outside and nearly ran into Jack. He mumbled an apology that Jack absently waved off and turned around to lock up. This semester he’d gotten assigned to an actual library meeting room for office hours and it was really nice to not have to fight for a table in the main rooms, or try to jam in students in the office he and Galahad shared, so he was going to try to stay on the librarians’ good side about it.

“I came over here and I was desperate to keep up with football, so I worked on the school paper for a year as a sports columnist. The girls’ teams in America usually put on a better game, I’ve noticed,” Jack grinned. The tops of his cheekbones were red again and his eyes were sparkling. He shrugged, moving like he had last thoughts about every motion so he ended up looking as jerky as the Tinman. “You were—are really good! I heard the rumors, but I didn’t think Santa Clara would ever give you up.”

Gawain had a hard time trying not to laugh under his breath. What had Galahad called the kid? A puppy? Not quite, since Jack had enough balls to actually strike up a conversation with the girl he liked even if he looked like he was half-dying of shyness through the whole thing. The soccer fanatic part was definitely right, though.

“Oh, yeah.” A shadow passed over Jess’ face. She smiled after a moment, but it only pulled at about three-quarters of her mouth. “Thanks. Look, really, I wouldn’t want to put you out of your way, and I’ve got to figure out how to get around this place myself…”

Jack blinked, then visibly deflated. He shook himself a couple times and from behind the polite expression he threw up, looked sort of like he didn’t know what had gone wrong, but like he was going to go bang himself up over it anyway, and never mind where the fault actually was. “No, really, it’s on my way—is that Professor Kernyw?”

He leaned in front of Gawain, trying to peer around the corner as the sound of voices began to filter down to them. It sounded like a pretty involved discussion…well, that was being nice. Gawain was pretty sure he’d caught a couple fragments of curses, and the tempo of each speaker was still rising, each of them trying to get in before the other did. The first one was Kernyw, and the other person sounded familiar, too…

…not Philosophy, though. Anyway, it was not a great idea for anyone lower than, say, assistant professor to hang around when the faculty started to fight. Tenured people could be right jackasses about taking out their losses on the nearest person, and never mind whether said student was actually in their department or not. “I think we’d better leave. Believe me, that kind of thing? Not fun to watch.”

“Good point…I can always ask him about the readings next week since he’s got two more lectures,” Jack muttered. He started to turn around. “Oh, thanks again, Gawain. Sorry we kept you so late.”

“No problem.” Gawain nodded to each of them as he stepped away. It looked like they were going to cut back through shelves to a side-hall.

Kernyw and whoever he was arguing with sounded like they were drifting towards the small private conference rooms, so Gawain decided he’d round the reference book stacks. That’d take him into the same hall as Jack and Jess, but about twenty yards further down, and it’d neatly avoid the whole professor issue.

He passed Dagonet checking the shelves on his way and gave the other man a hesitant smile, to which Dagonet solemnly inclined his head, then got held up for a second by a group of freshmen girls slowly leaving their table.

“You’ve got such pretty highlights!” one of them said. Unlike Jack, she didn’t look at all embarrassed about saying stupid stuff, though she was pulling her shoulders forward so her breasts scrunched up. “Hi, I’m Angela.”

“Hi. Sorry, I’m late for a…” God, it got worse and worse every year. At least Tristan hadn’t been around to see this one, Gawain thought as he hurried away. It’d been getting really hard to explain to Arthur why so many girls in his discussion groups managed to step in dog shit or got squirrels falling out of trees onto them.

Come to think of it, Gawain wondered how Arthur was doing without Tristan to lurk around and help discourage some of the crazy students who went after him. This was…yeah, it’d be the first year Tristan wasn’t also on campus. Arthur probably was going to have to go beyond just holding his office hours in extremely public places and start getting bodyguards to stand by.

Then again, he’d cut down on his teaching load a lot to concentrate on what he said was the new sub-department; he was hoping to get the guidelines for its major approved by the end of the year, he said. And that was probably true, but that didn’t talk about why Tristan had started getting nervous every time Arthur went out of town for a conference, or why when Lancelot or Guinevere showed up at Arthur’s office now, they always grabbed his arm like they were afraid he’d disappear on them. Especially Lancelot: he did a lot of innuendo, but actual public displays of affection weren’t too common.

“Hey!”

“Oh, my God, don’t—Christ!”

Gawain stopped. Or at least he tried to, but the hallway floor had been newly waxed and he ended up skidding a few feet. He threw out his hand and pushed off the wall, using that to his advantage, but whatever was going on was happening just around the corner.

“Professor Ker—c’mon, don’t! Don’t!”

“You jealous little bitch! I know why you’re bringing this up! I know!”

Okay…Kernyw and Jack, and a girl whose shout had been too high-pitched to recognize, but whom Gawain was betting was Jess. Fuck.

And then Gawain heard someone getting punched. _Fuck_.

He ran around the corner, tossing his bookbag to the side as he did, and grabbed the nearest person. He didn’t stop to see who it was, but just pushed them as far away as he could, and then moved on to the next person. When getting into a fight that you didn’t know the history of, the best bet was just to shove everybody apart and figure things out later, when you were sure nobody had weapons or anything.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Jess was yelling. She briefly dodged into Gawain’s view and he began to turn to her, but she kept on going to grab someone: long dark hair flew past Gawain as Jess hauled another woman back.

“Holy shit…” Jack was slumped against the wall, holding his shoulder and looking shell-shocked.

Gawain turned around and just glimpsed Kernyw flat on his ass on the floor before a furious growling shriek blasted his ear. He instinctively threw up his arms, then hissed as nails stabbed into one side of his left arm. “Jesus goddamn—”

He pushed back, then belatedly grabbed for the woman when he realized that that was just about to send her and Jess—still trying to hold her back—off their feet. Not that the lady was looking like she was going to thank Gawain for it. And Jesus Christ, it was Dr. Fay.

“You hypocritical piece of shit! You call yourself a head of the department! You’re a fucking disgrace!” she hissed at Kernyw.

He flushed red and threw up his leg to rise to one knee. At that point, Gawain decided he’d better get in there again and slid between them. “Hey! Dr. Kernyw! Dr. Fay! For God’s sake, don’t do this here!”

Both of their gazes snapped to him, and for a moment, all was silent. Kernyw slowly dropped back, the anger in his face draining away to bewilderment as he stared about. “What—how—”

“Ooooh, God,” Fay mumbled, dropping her face into her hand.

After a moment, Jess let go of Fay’s other arm, which immediately came around so Dr. Fay could rub at her temples. Jess warily backed off, looking at Jack. “Are you…okay?”

Which set Kernyw guiltily staring at Jack, who cautiously pressed at his shoulder. He winced a little, but it didn’t look like he needed a hospital or anything.

“I think I need an icepack,” Jack said.

Gawain just sort of stood there. He had a feeling he should be yelling his head off, but he didn’t know who to call for and as disgusting and awful as Fay and Kernyw had just been, Gawain still didn’t exactly feel comfortable bitching them out.

This really hadn’t been covered in the grad student manual.

A rattle suddenly echoed down the hall and everyone jumped. They didn’t get a chance to relax, since it quickly became clear that the rattle was due to somebody walking really fast towards them and none of them were going to have time to get away. Though Dr. Fay at least made an attempt to fix her hair, which had half-fallen out of her bun; Dr. Kernyw just sat on the floor, looking as if somebody had smacked him hard on the skull.

About twenty seconds later, Arthur rounded the corner. He was buried deep in some folder and so he didn’t notice them right away, but his head came long before most people’s would have. He stared uncomprehendingly for a moment before his gaze slowly, disbelievingly started to sharpen; he’d already come to a stop and flipped the folder beneath his arm. After a moment, he turned to Gawain. “What on earth just happened here?”

Dr. Fay opened her mouth, but was interrupted by someone calling out in the hall, “Is anything the matter?”

“It’s fine, Fulcinia,” Arthur called back. “I’ve got it. Just…keep the hallway clear for a few minutes, please. There’s been a bit of a spill.”

“I don’t suppose we could leave it at that?” Kernyw didn’t sound like he was even convincing himself. His head was down and his shoulders hunched, and his expression was that of a man who knew nothing was going to keep him from being bounced out.

Arthur looked sharply at him, then at Dr. Fay, who’d opened her mouth. She immediately shut it, then seemed a little puzzled at herself.

“You’re obviously upset,” Arthur said. “I suggest we adjourn to somewhere less public…the general offices for your department probably are closest.”

“Um.” Jess timidly raised her hand. “I have to—”

The look Arthur gave her was softer, but not any less giving. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to accompany us till we all figure out what just happened here. Now, if it’s really an emergency, I can make sure a note’s sent, or that it’s taken care of somehow. Don’t worry—we don’t judge before we hear the evidence.”

“It’s just…picking up some stuff. I’m on the fo—soccer team here and I’m supposed to have my gear by tomorrow morning,” Jess muttered, staring at the floor.

“If you can give me an address and a list, I can send someone to do that for you. I’ll let the athletic department know you’re held up as well—no, this won’t be a black mark on your record. I promise.” Arthur smiled, which usually took care of things.

It pretty much did with Jess, though she was nothing like the usual airhead who went drooling after Arthur. She probably wasn’t either in the long run, but for right now, she was completely in Arthur’s pocket. If he smiled more, he probably would have a much easier time of it.

“Thank you for your discretion,” Dr. Fay quietly said to Arthur.

The smile dropped off his face. “It’s in kind. Don’t force me to be undiplomatic,” he muttered right back. “All right, can everyone stand?”

* * *

Gawain had punctuated his story with a lot of long pauses and embarrassed side-long looks at Tristan, so about half-way through, Lancelot had wandered down the hall and charmed some coffee out of the nearest passing secretary. He’d brought some back to Guin so she’d only bitched at him a little for missing some of the story. Whereupon he’d mentioned that Gawain’s voice carried quite well and he’d heard everything, so Gawain didn’t have to stop and repeat for his behalf. She’d looked rather preciously annoyed at that.

“Arthur’s pretty good at showing up just in time to save the day,” Galahad commented, shifting his knees around. He put his hands on Mariette’s waist and lifted her a bit, then tucked her back into his left arm.

“Whatever. All I know was, I was fucking happy to see him. I seriously wouldn’t have known what to do. And even if I had, I’m not sure I’m qualified to do it—I mean, Kernyw’s got tenure already, doesn’t he?” Tristan and Gawain had semi-swapped places so now Gawain was squeezed into the couch next to Galahad and sagging with relief into the cushions. He stared at the ceiling, as if thanking God for Arthur again.

Well, God should be thanked for some of it, but most of the time, Lancelot felt like marching up there and asking if His Almighty Lord could’ve gone just a smidge lighter on the guilt and duty.

And anyway, serendipity played a much smaller part in Arthur’s life than most people ever knew. “Reading a folder, huh?”

Something pointy smashed into Lancelot’s foot, sending him jerking straight up in his chair and nearly making him spill his coffee. He started to swear, then noticed everyone staring. So instead he smiled half-heartedly and sipped at the coffee, and made plans to break every single one of Guin’s damn heels whenever they did get back home.

“It was kind of weird that he was there when he was, though. I thought he was in meetings over at the Dean’s office all day—he had to cancel a meeting with me for those—and that’s across campus.” After a moment, Gawain sat up and snapped his fingers. He briefly grinned with the unfettered joy of a man who’d just remembered a piece of random trivia the one time in a million he needed to remember it. “Oh, right. No, that makes sense. He emailed me earlier if I could bring a book by his office, but I told him I was going to be busy then and he said it was all right, he’d just try to run over and get it himself. I guess he got a moment.”

It was on the tip of Lancelot’s tongue to ask what book, but even to him, that seemed a little obvious. And when he glanced at Guin, she made it clear she thought that’d be ridiculously suspicious.

“Mark got tenure just before he was promoted to head up the department,” Tristan thoughtfully said. He was watching the conference room door, which probably was why he’d moved to the table in the first place: clearer line of sight. “Three years ago? Dr. Fay’s about six months from getting it, last I heard.”

Lancelot could tell Guinevere was dying to ask for more along that line, but she restrained herself. Good thing, because as much as they disliked Fay for flirting with Arthur _every single damn time_ she saw him, she had been one of Tristan’s favorite professors. And Tristan would know exactly how much of their interest was due to plain possessiveness, and he’d do that damn blank-face that was really a hidden smirk, and he was Arthur’s pseudo-adopted son so they weren’t allowed to hurt him.

“Oh, so she’s in the forensic science department, too?” Jack asked. His hand wandered towards his shoulder. “She’s got a terrific right.”

Gawain paused, then turned to look incredulously at him. “Fay’s the one who hit you?”

“Well, yes, but she wasn’t actually trying to hit me—”

“Wait, wait, start at the beginning,” Guin said. “Best way to keep from getting confused.”

Of course, strictly speaking, she and Lancelot probably shouldn’t even be worrying about getting confused because they shouldn’t be getting involved…this certainly wasn’t the time for Lancelot to be developing advanced moral scruples. He rolled his eyes at himself and pricked up his ears.


	3. Half-Baked Planning

Galahad poked at the sidewalk crack with his toe, his face all screwed up like he was thinking hard. Or like he was thinking about smacking Jack, but fighting it because they were outside on public grounds. “So lemme get this straight—your favorite female soccer player just transferred here, and you like, talked your way into one of the most popular philosophy classes so you could be in the same two-hundred-plus lecture hall with her, but you _don’t_ want help getting into the athletic department to see her?”

“How do you know you could get us into the dorms or the practice areas, anyway?” Jack asked. He could feel his cheeks burning and he scrubbed at his right one for a couple seconds before giving up. It wasn’t going to do any good; he’d been hopelessly pasty all his life, so it wasn’t as if he was going to be able to hide a blush now.

“I dated a couple girls on the…let’s see…track…swimming…tennis…golf…lacrosse…”

Jack blinked. “This was…before Mariette, right?”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Galahad said, looking offended. “Jesus—”

“Sorry, sorry, foot in mouth. I’m just…look, don’t you think I should, I don’t know, meet her and talk to her before I go jumping fences or anything. I know you’re trying to help, and I really do appreciate it.” Especially since like an ass, Jack had spent their first week rooming together in a World Cup daze, and even after that, Galahad still was trying to be friendly. And he was a second-year grad student, at that—he hardly needed to be wasting his time with an idiot like Jack. “I just want to make a good impression on her.”

Galahad sighed, then checked his watch. “Look, I’ve got to run. Just let me know if the talking thing doesn’t work out, okay? I mean, you’re skinny enough so that we could probably just slip you through a window.”

“Ah…thanks. Will do,” Jack slowly replied. He backed up a bit and watched Galahad start off towards the Econ offices.

His roommate clearly had an interesting background, and even more interesting personal morals. Of course, Jack’s father would have chalked that up to Galahad being partially a liberal arts major and partially a ‘bean-counting’ major. If the Admiralty couldn’t use it on a warship, then it didn’t exist for his dad.

Thankfully, Jack’s mother thought medicine was a perfectly respectable field and for once had harangued _for_ Jack. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too shocked once she found out he was planning to go the sports and not the hospital route with that.

Someone jostled Jack, then rushed on with a quick muttered apology. He wasn’t hurt, but that did remind him that he needed to get moving himself. The first philosophy of science lecture was in ten minutes, and he’d wanted to get there early to find a seat where he could hide from the lecturer and hopefully spot Jess Bhamra before the end of class.

Jack pulled his backpack strap higher up on his shoulder and headed off. Was he acting ridiculously pathetic over this? Yes. But by God, if he had to be a geek about it then he was going to be an orderly, forward-thinking one.

* * *

The lecture hall was a lot bigger than Jack had been expecting. His freshmen year philosophy seminar had had even more people, but then, one of the primary lecturers for that class had been Professor Pendragon and anyone with eyes could understand why he’d draw so many people. He’d been one of the best teachers Jack had had, too…when all the bloody girls hadn’t been drowning him out with their giggling.

After noticing how the overhead projector had been aimed, Jack ended up picking a seat in the far left corner. Whenever Professor Kernyw turned to point out something on the screen, he’d have to put his back to Jack, which was ideal since Jack spent about ten seconds of every minute madly copying the notes and the other fifty seconds searching the auditorium.

No luck. He was still looking when the lights suddenly came up, their brightness like a clap of thunder, and class was over. Jack groaned in disappointment before he could help himself, but he did have a spot of luck there because Kernyw belatedly assigned homework and everyone else moaned at the exact same moment. Frankly, Jack couldn’t have cared less; he only needed this class for distribution, so he wasn’t even taking it graded. As long as he turned in every third homework assignment, showed up and wrote coherently on the exams, he was free to…fail at even being a stalker, apparently.

He only had this one class today, so he took his time stuffing his things into his backpack. Then he remembered that he also had to show up to someone’s office hours in order to officially get on the class rosters and hurried it up a bit; by then the hall had more or less emptied out so he had no problem making his way to the doors. He paused there to pull out his listing of GSIs so he could figure out which one would be easiest.

“Um, excuse me?”

“Yes—” Jack looked up with a pleasant, absentminded smile on his face and froze that way. Well. Maybe somebody was looking out for him today.

Jess Bhamra held up a campus map and a GSI listing rather similar to Jack’s, looking a bit distressed. “I’m so sorry, but I’m trying to get to here and I have no idea how to read this map. Could you—”

“Oh. Oh, sure! Actually, I was going the same way,” Jack said, praying he didn’t sound too creepy. “Jack Hammond.”

He must have come off a little too excited, because Jess blinked and leaned back a little, but after a moment she smiled. She was…well, shorter than she’d looked on the field, but just as pretty. “Thanks. I’m Jess Bhamra.”

And that was about all Jack really recalled of their conversation on the way over to the u-brary. He thought he said some inane things about where other things on campus were, and he made her laugh once, but he had no idea whether it was at him or with him.

Actually, he was rather glad the GSI in question ended up being Gawain, because the insides of his head had been getting truly twisted up in nerves and he could feel he was on the verge of blurting out something incredibly stupid. But Gawain was there, and instead Jack got to let off pressure by acting an idiot about that; now that he thought about it, he should’ve recognized the name on the list. The GSIs were all by their family name, but still, Gawain’s wasn’t that common.

Jack blundered through making up on the spot some questions about the class, then gratefully let Jess take over the session. Unlike him, she’d clearly been paying attention to the lecture…which probably ruled out offering to help tutor her. She’d always come off as quite bright in the pre- and post-game interviews…

“Thanks for staying after,” Jess said, and Jack came back to the world with a thump.

Gawain glanced at him, but it was too quick for Jack to tell whether the other man had really noticed what was up with him. “Oh, it’s no big deal. And how about you? Anything else?”

“No—well, yes, but I’m pretty sure I’d be repeating myself.” Jack looked down at his notebook and was pleasantly surprised to see that he’d in fact been taking notes. They even looked like they might be related to the class. “I probably have all the answers somewhere in here. I just need to read through it all—sorry, I’m just not concentrating today.”

Yeah, Gawain had definitely noticed what was going on, but he seemed more amused by it than anything else. He just laughed and told Jack to email, or pester Galahad, and started to pack up. He was kind of like a less profane, more laidback version of Galahad with the way he seemed to approach the world.

Jack didn’t really have any plans for now, so he walked slowly and let himself fall into step with Jess. She didn’t seem to find it too weird, thank God. “So what was that all about? You’ve got a secret line into the teaching staff?”

“Oh, no, not really. I’m just sharing a flat with his friend, who’s another Philosophy major. I think. Galahad’s doubling up with Econ too,” Jack said. He watched Jess dig around in her notebook, then pull out one of the free sheets stuck in it and took a wild guess.

Sure enough, she asked for help getting around campus again, and he didn’t completely make a hash of turning that into a longer conversation and an excuse to keep walking with her. They were interrupted by the sound of Dr. Kernyw arguing with someone, but Gawain sensibly told them to walk around it and Jack sensibly managed to take his advice. It looked like Jack’s mind wasn’t a complete loss. Maybe it was even recovering.

He led Jess towards one of the side-halls, which was going to be a bit long but which should nicely circumvent the issue. “So…I’m sorry if this is prying, but can I ask why you decided to transfer here? I mean, I love Avalon, and the women’s football team is pretty good, but in terms of football, if you’re comparing New York to California…”

“Ah, I think the East Coast teams are going to have a good year. They’ve really been coming up,” Jess said. She lightened her words with a grin, but didn’t soften the argument.

“Well, true. College-level, we’re definitely getting better. But ugh—I’m sorry, I just can’t stand the Red Bulls.” Jack grimaced. Actually, he found MLS incredibly dull compared to back home, but he was in America for at least four years, so mooning over what he was missing obviously wasn’t a viable option. He just wished coping was easier.

Jess had a quirky half-smile on her face. “D. C. United?”

“Chivas, thank you,” Jack sniffed. “Though this is all because it’s so hard to watch an EPL game here.”

After a moment, Jess laughed and shook her head. Her braid started to slip over her shoulder and she pushed it back as they turned a corner. “I miss English footie too,” she admitted. “It’s such a long flight from L. A. to London—that’s where my family is—that I got really lonely. Even though my friend Jules…well, a few hours’ difference in flight time doesn’t sound like much, but it can be.”

“No, I—what the hell?” Jack pushed on ahead, trying to get a good look. A big cart of books was blocking off half the hallway, and beyond that were the sounds of…oh, it was Kernyw and whoever else was arguing with him. They’d reversed direction and were coming back the opposite way.

Well, in that case Jack and Jess would have to take the really long way. He turned and was lifting his hand to point where they’d have to go when woman cried out.

“Don’t touch me!” Kernyw said, voice edged with violence.

Beside Jack, Jess sucked in her breath and grabbed for her bookbag strap, starting to push it down. “I think—”

Kernyw inhaled, loudly and sharply. When a man breathed like that, sounding like a maddened bull, it never was a good sign. They couldn’t leave now—they couldn’t leave this alone, Jack decided, but he didn’t know what to do, really. He couldn’t see what was going on—he dropped his bag and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey!”

He was hoping just a shout might remind the others they were in a public area, and for a moment, everything was quiet so Jack thought it might have worked.

“I’m going to see the Dean right now,” said a woman’s voice. There was the click of a heel as she took a step.

“Oh, my God—Christ!” Kernyw suddenly scrambled towards her. “Morgan!” he hissed.

Jess was standing where she could see better and she abruptly tossed off her backpack to run forward. “Hey, don’t!”

Of course, Jack was hot on her heels. Then she dodged left and he got a clear view of what was happening: Kernyw had a woman by the arm and was trying to pull her back, while she was doing everything short of punching him to try and get free. She raised her arm and her face was set in a truly frightening snarl. Kernyw’s back was to Jack; he cursed and arched, lifting his free arm.

Jack hit him right about then and wrapped his arms around the other man’s waist, pulling hard and pleading with him to stop. He’d caught Kernyw off-guard, and it looked like Jess had tackled down the woman’s arm, so they started to split into two groups. But Kernyw was putting up a hell of a fight. “You jealous little bitch! I know why you’re bringing this up! I know!”

“You know how to put us in the shit!” the woman snapped. She suddenly lunged, and though Jess tried her best, the other woman topped her by several inches and outreached the block Jess threw with one elbow.

At the same time, Kernyw slipped so he and Jack twisted. The woman’s fist came at Jack and he ducked right as something smashed into his shoulder. He let go of Kernyw and went staggering back till he hit the wall; it didn’t hurt too badly, but the sheer shock just flattened him anyway.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Jess was crying, near tears now. She let the other woman slip away and had to jump after her as she went for Kernyw, who’d fallen on the floor.

Jack stepped forward to help, but got pushed out of the way from behind. He whirled, then winced as his shoulder acted up. And then he noticed it’d suddenly quieted down, and looked up to see Gawain standing in the middle of the whole mess, staring in horror at everyone. At least it looked like he’d managed to get everyone separated, which was better than Jack had done.

It just went…rather pear-shaped from there. Professor Pendragon came on the scene about a minute later and immediately took charge, for which Jack—and Gawain, for that matter—was very relieved. Finding out that they’d have to go over to the forensic science department and probably have to spend at least the afternoon there being interviewed and talking to the _Dean_ wasn’t quite so nice, no matter how much Arthur kept reassuring Jack and Jess that it wasn’t going on their academic record.

“Wonder how he knows we weren’t part of it,” Jess muttered, walking dejectedly alongside Jack. She’d taken things pretty well, agreeing to let someone else pick up her gear, but she didn’t seem thrilled.

Understandable, if she’d only been here a week. Jack had been here two years and he was dragging his feet. “Well, it’s—right, you probably haven’t heard all the rumors about Professor Pendragon yet. He’s really popular.”

“I’ve heard my hallmates moaning about running out of classes to take with him.” Jess tilted her head and looked ahead of them to where Arthur was escorting Kernyw and the other woman. She grinned a little. “Okay, I can see that. What, did he used to be a model or something?”

“Only the sororities tell that one, and they’re all idiots,” Jack snorted. “No, it’s more like Sherlock Holmes, a bit. He’s helped break up fights and solve little mysteries on campus before, and even in class it’s always like he knows what you’re thinking just from looking at you. Some people think he must be like James Bond or something.”

They shared an eye-roll. “Because of the accent. Oh, my God. Americans get such funny ideas whenever I open my mouth,” Jess said. “Like, in California my friend Jules used to get boys asking her all the time whether she was related to Twiggy because she came over with me, and she’s kind of tall and blonde.”

“Juliette Paxton, right? You two made the best pair of strikers.” Jack smiled, but Jess flicked her eyes away. Kicking himself, he smushed his icepack harder down on his shoulder.

Somebody coughed behind them, and he turned around to see a concerned-looking Gawain. “Hey, careful with your shoulder, okay? I think I know where we’re going here—take a left and then…” Gawain heard something behind him and turned around, then stiffened “…Tristan? What are you doing here?”

“I got a call from the forensic department. What are you doing here?” Tristan asked. He stepped up so he and Gawain pretty much crowded Jack the rest of the way into the building.

It didn’t exactly look like the two of them were going to follow any time soon, so Jack kept on going. He caught Jess looking and nodded. “Boyfriend,” he whispered. “Also, Arthur’s foster-son or something like that. He graduated this May, and I hear he does crime scene things for the NYPD. You should hear the stories about _him_ …”

“He doesn’t look that scary,” Jess said, shrugging. She’d lagged a bit and now she hurried up to Jack. “Sorry about…a moment ago. Jules and I, we’re best friends, but she stayed at Santa Clara.”

“Oh.” Jack decided not to pry there, since it was obvious Jess really didn’t want to talk about it. He lifted his icepack to shake off some of the condensation, then put it back on. “I guess all I can say is foot, meet mouth? Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Jess shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’m just a little…I really missed home. Really, really missed it, and I talked to Avalon and since the flight time’s not so long, I get to go back more often. Jules and I kind of fought about my transfer, so I’m just feeling that a little. It’s nothing to do with you. My fault, actually—you were just complimenting me. Thanks, by the way.”

“You’re very welcome,” Jack said, grinning.

* * *

“And after that, they just had us in there one after the other for an interview. You know, basically what I just told—well, was it the same for you?” Jack turned to Jess.

She shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, just about.”

She seemed fairly levelheaded so far, though Guinevere was automatically editing out the obvious adoring glow from Jack’s version of her. At least she didn’t seem to overreact like Mariette sometimes did, and her I. Q. hadn’t dropped about fifteen points when Arthur or Lancelot had walked near her. On the other hand, she clearly had no idea why Jack was being so nice to her, and as well-bred a young man as he seemed to be, that still was probably going to cause problems later. He wasn’t scamming her, but neither were the two of them dealing with each other on the same level of understanding.

“Fay really took a swing at you? Damn,” Galahad said. He dodged, then caught Mariette’s hand without even looking. “What? I’m not commenting on the physical differences between the sexes or whatever the fuck, okay? It’s just, well, she’s not called the Ice Bitch for no reason. I never would’ve figured her for a fistfight in the library.”

Tristan had gone quiet again. He had his elbows propped up on his knees and his hands folded together so he could press his nose and mouth into the edge of them. After a moment, Gawain noticed, but didn’t reach over and pat Tristan’s shoulder or anything. He just sat there with a patiently worried expression on his face, like he’d be perfectly fine with doing that for the next few days or so.

“She always seemed very friendly to me. Though granted, I’ve only met her a few times at parties.” Lancelot spoke thoughtfully, and for once he remembered to keep the calculation out of his eyes as well as his voice. The dead give-away was how he’d angled himself so that he didn’t have to turn his head to keep an eye on Tristan, but no one besides Guinevere and Tristan were going to notice that.

Galahad raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, well, you don’t work here.”

“You haven’t met her often either,” Tristan suddenly said. He wasn’t exactly defensive, but there was something in his tone that made Gawain sit up straighter, and that was a pretty good barometer of Tristan’s mood.

“No, but I’ve talked to enough other grad students who’ve walked in on her freezing out some other professor. And the secretaries don’t like her, either. You should hear Vanora go on about her…or about Kernyw’s girlfriend, for that matter,” Galahad retorted. He turned his head and just caught Gawain death-glaring the hell out of him. Then he flicked a glance at Mariette, only to find her frowning at him as well. “Oh, what?”

Guinevere had finished her coffee a few minutes ago, but had kept the cup just in case she needed an excuse. Which she did now, so she leaned forward and set it on the table. “Were there previous problems?”

“Hey, I told you what her nickname was. She was mean, but she never did it in a way that you could—”

“A little,” Tristan said. He put his hands down and cocked his head, staring at some detail of his palms. “That girlfriend of Mark’s…she was making suggestions about how to run the department. I think Dr. Fay was disappointed she wasn’t chosen to head the department three years ago, but she respected Mark enough not to argue about it.”

Lancelot absently pulled at his tie. “Till recently? Who’s the girlfriend again?”

Tristan shot him a cool, knowing look. “I didn’t mention the name.”

Jack and Jess just were sitting and looking rather confused by this whole conversation, but they were obviously sensing some of the undercurrents, even if they didn’t understand them. And the older ones definitely had more than half an idea of what was going on—Galahad in particular looked like he was about to say something carelessly perceptive and tactless. It was a shame Lancelot had scooted too far away for Guinevere to discreetly stomp his toes again.

“How’s work, Tristan?” Guinevere interrupted. It was clumsy, but she was trading speed for finesse here. “Arthur tells me you’ve already contributed to a few significant cases.”

“It’s fine. In a month they’re going to start staggering my shifts so I’m not working every night,” Tristan said. He seemed to think a minute, then shrugged. “At least, before. I’m not sure how my boss will take what’s going down here—I got into his lab on a strong recommendation from Mark.”

Lancelot did a reasonable job of seeming merely surprised and not at all like he was about ready to jump into full interrogation mode. “Well, it’s not like you faked anything on your résumé and you’ve been working there long enough for them to see Mark wasn’t just fluffing you up. Why would anything happening here be a problem?”

After another moment, Tristan apparently came to a decision. “It probably won’t because this came to a head after I graduated. But it’ll still be hard to explain.”

Guinevere glanced at the meeting room door, which was still closed. “Well, it doesn’t sound like Arthur’s going to be out any time soon. Did you talk to them already?”

“I told Arthur. He’ll tell the Dean. I’d rather not talk to Mark right now,” Tristan said, and he actually sounded a little bitter there. With his experiences, he couldn’t have run across many people he admired, but apparently he had felt a little of that towards Dr. Kernyw. “I don’t know much, anyway. I never paid a lot of attention to Isabel—his girlfriend. I think he met her at an equipment fair.”

“What’s that?” Mariette asked.

“It’s just when they invite vendors to bring samples of lab equipment for the professors to look at and possibly order. Isabel was working for one of the companies…”


	4. The Snowball Effect

“Hey, Cornwell. You got a call.”

Tristan held in a sigh. If he moved just a little too much, he was going to lose that tiny white speck to the digestive juices. He carefully twisted his wrist so he could continue to hold back the flap of perineum, then reached around to slowly lower the probe. A fraction before its tip would have touched the clump, he let the tweezers spread and delicately pushed their ends around the white speck. Then he lifted them and transferred the clump to a Petri dish.

The other lab technician had been patiently waiting, but as soon as Tristan turned around, the other man dropped the phone on the cart and walked off. He was pulling on a pair of gloves as he did, so he probably had been forced to drop whatever he’d been doing to come out. So Tristan wasn’t offended.

He stripped off one glove and picked up the phone, while with his other hand, he rummaged through the scalpels. “Hello?”

*Is this…Mr. Cornwell?* a female voice uncertainly asked. *This is Stella. I don’t know if you remember me…we never really spoke.*

The name rang a bell, and after a moment, Tristan remembered the appropriate profile: Morgan’s secretary. He stopped searching through the instrument tray. “I do. Are you calling on Dr. Fay’s behalf?”

Stella sounded much more relieved the next time she spoke. *Oh, yes. She had a matter she wanted to talk to you about and she was wondering if she could make an appointment with you?*

Tristan paused, then made himself hold in the snort as well. Morgan obviously had given her secretary some kind of script to read from, because that was the same type of flattery she used on Arthur. It was amusing—and a little disturbing, since she never did anything without calculating first, and she was treating him like an equal of hers. They’d been on good terms but not to that degree, and Tristan didn’t think it was that likely she’d suddenly given up on Arthur and moved on to him, so…damn it, it had to be about Mark. “I’m usually free afternoons after two.”

*Can you come in tomorrow afternoon? I’m sorry if this seems a bit rushed, but it’s a rather important matter.*

Definitely Mark. He and Morgan had maintained a chilly truce for years, but ever since Mark had started dating Isabel, he’d been pushing more and Morgan obviously hadn’t liked it. Tristan briefly debated telling Stella he was busy, and then continuously putting off the meeting, but finally decided that that would probably get Morgan coming down to the lab; she wasn’t one for prevaricating. And anyway, he would have more options if he were seeing what was happening himself instead of trying to find out second- or thirdhand.

“Four o’clock?”

*I’ll pencil you in. Thank you very much! Buh-bye,* Stella chirped.

Tristan took the phone down from his ear long enough to punch in Arthur’s number, then put it back. He glanced over the scalpels again, then picked up the one with the longest blade.

*Hello?*

“Arthur. Have you been paying any attention to the forensic science faculty lately?”

* * *

It’d been a long shot and unfortunately, it hadn’t paid off: Arthur had been too busy between the Clayton debacle and running his subdepartment to bend an ear to the campus gossip. He had promised to ask Vanora, but Tristan doubted that was going to come through before he got on campus and could do his own probing.

The lab had just wrapped up a major case, so Tristan had the night off to catch up on sleep and thus had started early in the morning, right after he’d gotten off work. He’d only stopped off at the apartment to leave his work-files there and see if Gawain had already left—he had; his first discussion of the semester was today and nerves usually saw him overpreparing for it right up to when the students walked in—before he hit campus.

The secretary pool didn’t seem to know much except that Mark had seemed a bit distracted, but he’d been like that for months now. Morgan’s secretary didn’t mix much with the others, so Vanora didn’t really have anything to say about that corner either. “I think the only time I’ve spoken to the poor woman was last week when I ran into her in front of the law library. Poor girl, she seems nice enough, but Dr. Fay keeps her running.”

“Well, thanks anyway. Just let Arthur know I stopped by, but it wasn’t an emergency.” Tristan leaned forward and gave Vanora the peck on the cheek on which she always insisted, then headed off for the law library.

A quick hack showed him that Morgan hadn’t been borrowing any unusual books from there. Forensic science was inextricably mixed up with the law nowadays, so her going over for advice from them wasn’t in and of itself odd, but Tristan still had a feeling that something was off. He thought about checking on the faculty to see if he could find out who she’d been contacting, but that would take too long.

Trying to figure out what Morgan was doing would be too complicated, so…Tristan found an isolated computer terminal and tried to remember the little he knew about Mark’s girlfriend. He’d met Isabel a few times, but she hadn’t terribly impressed him so after a cursory background check, he’d forgotten about her. That probably had been a bad idea, since Morgan certainly had always acted as if Isabel was a major issue and Dr. Fay wasn’t generally one for over-estimation.

Though Isabel had come off as fairly brainless: when introduced to Arthur, she’d asked him if he was from England, and when he’d said yes, she’d asked him if the national anthem was ‘God Save the _King_ ’ or ‘God Save the _Queen_ ’ because she’d heard people say both. It’d been one of the few times Tristan had ever seen Arthur literally drop his jaw at someone.

She didn’t come up with any kind of violent criminal record, but she was averaging three parking tickets a month. On a rather expensive car; Tristan tried to remember what she’d said was her job and couldn’t, so he set about looking that up. Of course, Mark was fairly well-paid and ran a lab that received some of the largest grants in all the university, but that seemed a little precipitate for him to give that sort of gift. Anyway, it appeared as if the car had been licensed to Isabel only a few weeks after she and Mark had met.

It was _expensive_ , but also fairly lowkey and tasteful: the kind of car Arthur might have bought if he had wanted to move in the social circles his inheritance and family background did allow for. Also a little off for a woman with that low of a credit score. Tristan stared at that page for a moment longer, then reluctantly closed the window and went back to trying to figure out her profession. Looking up the exact details of her credit card histories would have to wait till he got to one of his laptops at home, but he could guess from the way she’d dressed and ordered food the one time Mark had invited him along to dinner with them what Isabel might have been spending all that money on.

Twenty minutes later, Tristan decided he was having a very hard time answering what should be a very easy question. Isabel was mentioned once on the website of a company that sold extremely pricy DNA analysis equipment, but she was only down as one of many, many low-level sales reps. The income bracket was way off.

He tried for another five minutes, then checked his watch. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere here, and he was out of ideas based on the little knowledge he had, so he logged off. Mark was doing a lecture in another hour, which gave Tristan just enough time to stop in at the Conservatory, feed his hawk and squeeze in a nap. Then he could wander up and talk to Lynda without worrying about Mark barging in.

* * *

“Oh, I haven’t seen you in ages! You work too hard, Tristan,” Lynda said, giving him a big hug and kiss on the cheek.

Tristan patted her back, then pulled away. She’d known him too long to take offense at it and just offered to get him something to drink, which he turned down. He grabbed a seat in the corner, where he’d be able to see anyone coming down the hall from at least fifteen yards off. “I’m working the night-shift for at least another month. No one’s seeing much of me till then.”

“Not even that cute boyfriend of yours?” Lynda teased. She laughed and settled back behind her desk to work on what looked like Mark’s weekly schedule. “Well, I’m glad you stopped in, anyway. It’s one bright spot in my day—month, really.”

“Hmm?” He dropped his bag between his feet and unzipped it, then pulled out a casefile. Back when he’d been a student, he’d sometimes come down to sit here and work when the labs had gotten too full of other people, so that’d seem normal to Lynda.

She just sighed and rolled her eyes a little. “Well…that girl’s been in here more than ever.”

Isabel, Tristan mentally translated. He got out a highlighter and started working with his head cocked towards Lynda. She usually would go on for a while without needing prompting, and anyway, he liked her so he’d prefer not to use too much of that on her.

“I swear, sometimes I think Mark just needs a good fistfight and then a night in jail. If he was going to have a mid-life crisis, he could’ve been at least a little sensible and just bought some ridiculously flashy car, or had his hair dyed, but no, he picks up with a girl who’s half his age. If that.” Lynda shook her head and sighed. Some of her bangs slipped out from behind her ear and she put down her pen to tuck them back, then reached for her stapler. “Oh, I sound like a prude. I wouldn’t care about the age, really, if she just acted like she had half a brain. Like…I don’t know, like Arthur’s girlfriend.”

Tristan paused, then flicked a look over at Lynda. Of course, Arthur’s personal life was a popular topic on campus, but Lynda generally stayed away from it, apparently out of respect for him and Tristan.

“Now, she never makes a fuss when she comes to visit, but Isabel? Get out the ticker-tape and the screaming fans,” Lynda snorted. “And she sticks her nose in where she shouldn’t.”

After a couple seconds, Tristan decided it wasn’t a pause and that he probably should say something. “Where did she and Mark meet again? At one of those equipment fairs?”

“Yep. Sales rep, or so she said. Normally I don’t listen to Dr. Fay about other women, but this time I’m inclined to think she was telling the truth when she told me Isabel was basically a pretty display and the other reps were doing all the work,” Lynda said. She stuck the end of her pen in her mouth and chewed it a little, looking at the schedule spread over her desk. Then she pushed back and began digging through a drawer. “She keeps making suggestions to Mark about how to do things in the department and it’s obvious she doesn’t have a clue.”

Tristan stopped highlighting. “Really?”

“Just two weeks ago, I was getting ready to put in orders for the lab like usual when hours before the deadline, Mark comes in and asks me to change vendors. The price is much higher per unit, and well, maybe it’s of finer quality and maybe it isn’t. The usual thing would’ve been to order a small amount and see, right? Only he wanted a total switch.” Lynda shook her head as she straightened up again. “And guess whose vendor he wanted to use? I swear, I despair of him nowadays.”

That…probably was enough to go on. After a little more chatting about other subjects, like the new crop of graduate students and which one had already gotten thrown out of the dissection rooms for tasteless jokes, Tristan said his farewells and headed back across campus to Arthur’s office.

Arthur was out, but Tristan just needed to borrow Arthur’s computer so that wasn’t a problem. He scribbled a short note and left it in Arthur’s planner, then sat down to start on the searching. And he kept sitting for a few seconds.

Mark had been a very good advisor to him. A little distant for the first year till he’d decided Tristan was his top student, but even then he’d…made a reasonable effort to see to Tristan’s progress. He had always tended to be overly concerned with his and his lab’s reputation, and then the department’s only after, but he’d helped Tristan a lot. Maybe he hadn’t earned as much of Tristan’s respect as he could have, but he did deserve some gratitude.

On the other hand, it was beginning to sound as if Mark might have suspicious dealings with a manufacturing corporation, and if that were true, that could endanger the whole university. Avalon had done more for Tristan and Gawain. And Avalon mattered to Arthur, who’d forbidden Tristan to get involved in the Clayton-Interpol tangle that currently was threatening to force Arthur into a choice between academic life and a different profession. Tristan _could_ , however, take this on.

He lifted his fingers to the keyboard, hesitation dealt with. He’d just started to type in search terms when the door suddenly opened and Arthur came in, looking troubled. The other man drew up sharply and stared at Tristan for a moment, then abruptly closed the door.

“What did they send you?” Tristan said.

Arthur was holding a plain manila folder that looked like any other folder he might happen to handle, but the way he glanced at it ruled that out. Then he looked up at Tristan in a very strange way, as if he were apologizing in advance for bad news; usually he was apologetic because he thought something was his fault. “Your advisor—”

“Taking payments from vendors to manipulate university contracts? Involving his girlfriend Isabel?” Tristan took his hands off the keyboard and got up.

After a moment, Arthur just accepted that and moved on. “I received copies of intercepted emails and memos this morning from an…anonymous source, which also claims to have sent them to Merlin and to Dr. Fay. But why would they send it to me?”

He wasn’t asking Tristan for an explanation: he obviously already had a couple in mind. He was asking Tristan to start ruling out possible scenarios. “I think the evidence is real enough. Dr. Fay asked to talk to me—she didn’t say, but it has to be this—and I didn’t have to do much checking to find some support.”

Arthur cocked his head. “You didn’t talk to Mark about it at all yet?”

Tristan shook his head and came around the desk towards Arthur. After a look at the other man, he took the folder and quickly browsed through its contents, which all seemed genuine enough. It certainly was more than enough to open up an investigation into Mark’s finances…which Tristan should have checked first, come to think of it.

“I’m sorry, Tristan,” Arthur said in a low tone. He looked steadily and with real regret at Tristan. “It doesn’t change the quality of the knowledge and skills he taught you. But I know you wanted to think better of him.”

“I did what I could on my end; he didn’t keep up his,” Tristan replied after a moment. He had to pause and swallow in the middle of it. Then he gave himself a shake and tried to concentrate on what was currently happening rather than what could have happened. “This isn’t a set-up to frame him.”

Arthur grimaced. “Damn. I’ll still have to see Merlin and—it’s still a warning to me, isn’t it? Don’t mix academics with other interests.”

Tristan didn’t bother answering, since Arthur was only thinking aloud and he most likely was right. And he made another note to himself: step up checks on the espionage circuit. It’d been his advisor who’d been targeted, after all, so it wasn’t just for Arthur’s sake anymore.

“Very subtle of them,” Arthur muttered. His lip curled as he glanced down at the folder, eyes momentarily going icy. “They left it till you wouldn’t get _caught_ in it, but still…”

They could have done it earlier, according to the dates on some of the intercepted documents. And that could either be read as gentlemanly consideration—which Tristan sincerely doubted—or an extra level of warning.

“You said Morgan called you? I should probably try and see her too—where would she be right now?” Arthur took back the file and, after rearranging the papers in it, stuck it under his arm. “You’d better head over to the forensics department. Merlin’s already there, talking to some of the staff.”

“Morgan’s been spending some time in the law library lately. I haven’t looked at her schedule lately so I wouldn’t know where she is now for sure. Checking would take a while,” Tristan said. He swore to himself for a couple moments; he’d wanted to avoid direct involvement in Mark’s problem as much as possible, but that wasn’t a realistic option any more. 

And yes, he would’ve liked to avoid a face-to-face meeting with Merlin as well. The Dean seemed uncommonly prescient about certain matters, and the statue of limitations hadn’t yet run out on some of the pranks Tristan had pulled while at Avalon. But Arthur would probably keep that out of the picture for now…Tristan would have to call Gawain afterward and let him know about things, too. So much for spending any of his free day trying to make up for Gawain’s loneliness.

“Well, I’ll walk over to the undergrad library and check in with Dagonet just in case Morgan’s anywhere in the libraries. It’s on the way, so I’ll meet you at the forensics offices,” Arthur decided. He hesitated, then took a step forward and gave Tristan a quick hug. “I’m sorry about this.”

Tristan held onto him a little longer than he had onto Lynda. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault.”

“Partially not.” Which, since it was Arthur, was a little more sensible than usual. He gave Tristan’s shoulder a last squeeze before he headed off.

For a few minutes afterward, Tristan stayed in Arthur’s office and thought things over. But he came to the same conclusions, so in the end he just resigned himself to it. People were flawed, and Mark’s character issues had been dangerously close to doing him in for years. Not everyone could be like Arthur and face their problems and not back down.

And then again, people like Arthur did exist, and so did people like Gawain, who was always trying to improve things, even if it wasn’t in an earth-shaking way. So it wasn’t completely hopeless.

Tristan went out in a slightly better mood. He certainly was more focused on a solution to the problems at hand.

* * *

Lancelot looked over at Guinevere again, just to make sure she was following the second storyline beneath the simple one Tristan was telling to the others. She didn’t notice him for a few seconds, but when she did, she made an irritated gesture towards Tristan, so that was a yes. And he could in fact _listen_ without having to look at the other man, thank you.

Just as Tristan finished, the conference room door opened and Merlin stepped out. He seemed a little surprised to see Lancelot and Guinevere, but quickly regained his composure and turned to the others. “Jack, Jess, thank you very much. I’m sorry to have kept you so long, and if you need any excuses written, please let me know.”

“Er…so you don’t need us anymore?” Jack asked.

“No, you’re free to go now.” Merlin smiled. It was rather disturbing how good his impression of a bushy-bearded nice old grandfather was, particularly since Lancelot had been to his dinner parties and had heard him casually deconstruct snobs to the point of tears over the appetizer course. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Oh, it was no problem, really,” Jess said, getting up. Then she stood uncertainly about for a moment before finally turning to Jack with a sheepish look. “I…um, I’m really sorry to ask again, but I’ve got no idea where we are.”

Jack looked absolutely ecstatic. Then he seemed to realize that this wasn’t quite an appropriate reaction and promptly toned it down, chewing on his bottom lip a little. “Well, I could show you to your dorm—it’s on my way, anyhow. You’re living in South, right? With the other athletes?”

Lancelot missed the rest of that conversation because he was absolutely fascinated by how, when Galahad started to cough at the ‘on my way’ bit, Mariette smothered him with her hand. But he kept struggling and made it too obvious, so in desperation she dropped down and gave him some tongue. Merlin looked benignly nonplussed.

“I’m hungry,” she said when she came up for air. “Gawain, would you mind if we go and then bring you dinner? We aren’t doing anything here, I think.”

Galahad clearly knew he was being railroaded, but was just as clearly torn since it apparently was going to give him some quality time with his girlfriend. “Yeah…want Chinese or pizza? You do have to stay, don’t you?”

“Uh—” Gawain looked at Tristan, who looked at Merlin, who looked a little sorry but firmly nodded anyway. “Chinese sounds really good. Thanks.”

“No prob.” Then Galahad glanced around, but Jack was a bit smarter than his babbling indicated and had sneaked off with Jess in the meantime. With a shrug, Galahad grabbed Mariette’s hand and led her off. They started arguing at five feet, Mariette punched his arm at ten, and at fifteen they were cuddling again.

Merlin cleared his throat. “Tristan, I’d like to speak to you again. It’s just to clear up a few points that arose while I was speaking to Mark.”

Tristan didn’t exactly look like it was something he wanted to do, but he got up without making a hassle out of it. Gawain got in a surreptitious hand-squeeze, and then sat there staring worriedly after the other man.

As Tristan went in, Arthur came out. _Finally_. Lancelot got up—one second before Guin had, and didn’t she look annoyed when he slid out to grab Arthur’s arm first. Though she didn’t miss a beat in latching onto Arthur’s other side.

“So are you done yet?” Guin asked.

“Because I think we need to speak to you.” After a close look at the other man, Lancelot tightened his grip on Arthur’s arm. “And feed you. Did you skip lunch again?”

Arthur opened his mouth, then glanced over his shoulder. He wasn’t about to get any escape there, since Merlin and Tristan had already disappeared into the meeting room. Then he looked at Guinevere and Lancelot again. “I’d like to stay in the building until they’re done with Tristan,” he finally said in a mild tone.

“It’s a very large building.” Guin started pulling.

Gawain was looking at them oddly, as if he wasn’t sure whether he was allowed to laugh or not. Lancelot tipped him a wink, then pressed up against Arthur’s side. “And it’s after-hours. There has to be an empty office or something like that somewhere.”

“We need to _talk_ ,” Guinevere said, shooting both of them warning looks.

What? Lancelot started to ask, but then Arthur sighed and actually started walking with them, so Lancelot had to concentrate lest he trip over his own feet.

“We do indeed,” Arthur said under his breath. “All right, I think I know of a room.”


	5. Hearsay

After checking two or three rooms, Arthur finally located an unoccupied office. He walked all the way in before realizing it was devoid of any furniture except for a large desk, but by the time he turned around, Lancelot and Guinevere had popped in after and shut the door.

Lancelot glanced around…and continued to glance around, presumably for a chair. In the end, he finally took the desk and pushed himself up to perch on the edge. “All right, we’ve put up with matters for months now. But I, for one, am getting rather tired of it.”

“Lovely start—he doesn’t even know what you’re talking about,” Guinevere muttered.

Arthur did have an idea, but for the moment he decided to refrain from floating it. His guesses usually were accurate, but these two surprised him regularly enough that he wasn’t inclined to bet on it. And when he was wrong about them, he tended to be spectacularly wrong to boot.

“Would you stop undermining me?” Lancelot hissed to her. He raked his hand through his hair, then abruptly turned to Arthur. Anger and then fear and then frustration flashed over his face. “All right, how about we start at the beginning? If I heard correctly, Tristan’s advisor has gotten pushed into some dirty dealings by his corporate snake of a girlfriend.”

“More or less.” There’d been a slight chance at the beginning that Mark might have been an innocent victim or a dupe, but it’d gradually become quite clear that he had a perfect comprehension of what he’d been doing. He had seemed to lack a real _understanding_ of it, of what the consequences of his actions could potentially have meant to his department and to Avalon at large, but that wasn’t enough to excuse him.

He did seem to be genuinely in love, and not only in lust, with Isabel, which earned him a little pity from Arthur. Not enough to regret Merlin’s probable decision to have him fired, though, and not enough to make up for the warning chill that particular undertone of the situation held for Arthur.

“And someone sent you advance notice?” Lancelot sounded less certain of himself here; Tristan wouldn’t have come out and said it directly. “For example, a certain London-based agency who’s been very quiet lately regarding this area, even though you’ve been living every damn day as if they were about to show up on our doorstep?”

“Don’t blame him for that. That’s a perfectly reasonable reaction, given the circumstances,” Guinevere said under her breath.

Arthur briefly wondered if this one was going to degenerate into yet another side-squabble that he’d be forced to mediate. A hopeful feeling welled up in him and he disgustedly crushed it as soon as he realized; Lancelot and Guinevere weren’t usually like this, and that was because they weren’t usually so stressed over _him_. His life was ruining theirs again.

“And now he’s guilt-tripping. Stop distracting me, Guin,” Lancelot snapped. He leaned forward, then sat back again. When he waved at Arthur, Arthur understood the other man had been trying to pull him up, but was sitting too far away. “Look, Arthur, we’re not going to be idiots and be angry because you’re worried about preserving your life, all right? But you know, we’d appreciate the occasional update. Even if it’s just for professional interests, since we could actually arrest a threat—”

“What he’s trying to say is that do you have a problem right now?” Guinevere interrupted. She had remained standing by the door this entire time, but after checking the lock again, she came forward and grabbed Arthur’s hands, looking earnestly into his eyes. “Why’d they send you the file?”

Because it was step one in trying to force his hand, and suddenly Arthur was furious again. He’d told them so many times exactly what his opinion was, made it clear that he wasn’t interested and yet they were still trying, still believing he’d let them drive him into that corner. They were still interfering with his damned family, and by God, it almost was enough to make him take out a pistol and go hunting.

Guinevere sucked in her breath, eyes widening a little. She didn’t let go of Arthur’s hands even after he realized how he was crushing them and let go of hers. After a moment, he carefully clasped his fingers around her hands again.

“It’s not a frame on Mark—he’s truly guilty. But they’re pointing out that they’re watching me very closely for a chance to push me out of Avalon. Presumably in a way that would leave no choice but to fall back on my old profession,” Arthur finally said.

Lancelot swore viciously and drummed his fingers on the desk like each one was a small punch. He didn’t look surprised at all—neither did Guinevere—but he still had worked himself up into a rage over it anyway. Again, because it was Arthur and God, the file had been an infuriating tactic, but it was also looking to become an effective one.

“They couldn’t, could they? Haven’t you taken precautions?” Guinevere asked, still looking up at him. A hopeful, desperate quaver was threaded through her otherwise firm voice.

“I have. And I’ve been waiting for this sort of approach for a while. I’m afraid that might’ve affected my behavior…”

“Well, we did notice, but we put up with it. And contrary to what Guin seems to think, I’ll keep putting up with it as long as I know _why_ it’s happening,” Lancelot said, getting off the desk. He tucked one hand in his pocket as he swung himself across the space, all insouciance up till his eyes, which were dark with worry. “Okay. They fired a warning shot. Sadly, I’m pretty sure we can’t prosecute on this.”

Guinevere opened her mouth, then closed it. She lowered her head after a moment, thinking.

“What next?” Lancelot finished.

Arthur absently checked his watch, which immediately caused the others to tense up. He shook his head and put down his arm, giving it a little shake so his sleeve came down. “No, no, they won’t push on this soon. They waited so long to take this step; they’ll wait for me to over-think over it and then presumably drop my guard.”

“So…what next?” Lancelot was standing too far away for Guinevere to elbow him or stomp on his foot. Not that she didn’t take a stab at it anyway.

“I have some thinking to do, clearly.” Of course, Arthur was stalling, but as much as he wanted to give the pleading in their faces something to work with, he didn’t think he did have much of anything. He’d have to figure out where priorities lay, what sacrifices he could make and still continue to live with, and they simply couldn’t help him with that.

Guinevere seemed to understand or sense at least part of this, because she sighed and dropped her head to press her face into Arthur’s shoulder. She still held onto one of Arthur’s hands, and now she squeezed it hard before slowly letting up on the pressure, her thumb stroking the hollow of his palm.

“About what?” Lancelot asked.

“Then let’s go get Tristan out of there and go home,” Guinevere said at the same time. She lifted her head and glared at Lancelot, who backed up a bit and looked both startled and annoyed. “You’d better do your thinking while you’ve got some peace. God knows you tend to be too ascetic even then.”

Lancelot opened his mouth again, but Guinevere hissed something Arthur didn’t quite catch and the other man closed it. His expression changed to mulish, but he did get out of the way of the door.

“All right, but I’ve got a friend of the court brief to submit about this whole situation and I am going to say my piece sometime,” Lancelot muttered.

Both Guinevere and Arthur had to stop and look at him for a moment. He twitched and spread his hands, silently asking them what the new problem was.

“I had no idea you were getting that into the judicial end these days.” Guinevere sounded deeply amused.

And Arthur was too, but his amusement was tempered by the sudden knowledge that she was obviously referencing some sort of incident at work and he couldn’t place it. He’d been completely neglecting what was going on in their lives.

“I think it’s always a good idea to stretch your horizons.” Lancelot’s tone was unbelievably lofty.

He turned the knob and pushed the door open, then half-turned back to let them pass. Whereupon Guinevere reached out and delicately flicked his nose before sashaying down the hall, her slim skirt clinging tightly to perfectly outline the curves of her arse. Snorting and rubbing at his nose, a slightly-flushed Lancelot grabbed Arthur’s arm and stalked after her.

* * *

Merlin let Tristan go with a side-promise to Arthur to keep his and Arthur’s names out of things as much as possible, given Tristan’s innocence in the matter. It looked like Merlin was far from done with either Dr. Fay or Dr. Kernyw, for which Arthur couldn’t help being a little grateful. A run-in with Morgan was one of the last things he needed at the moment.

Tristan still didn’t seem to have completely gotten over the events of the day, but the last Arthur saw of him, he and Gawain were talking about renting a movie and Gawain was promising tacos, so it seemed as if he was being taken care of. So Arthur stopped over at his office, Lancelot trailing behind him, to collect his briefcase and then he went home.

Dinner was relatively quiet, though he did make an effort to inquire more into how work was going for Lancelot and Guinevere. Afterward, he normally went into his office to finish up whatever he’d had to bring home, but tonight he moved into the living room instead and spread his papers over the coffee-table. Fortunately, he’d been ahead anyway on everything that could be planned for, and the semester wasn’t sufficiently advanced enough yet to toss many unexpected problems into his lap.

Arthur was very near to done when the couch dipped on his left side and then an arm dropped around his waist. Lancelot nuzzled at his neck, stubble scraping first and then mouth soothing after, before turning to put his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. “I still need to talk to you.”

“I’m listening,” Arthur said, putting down his file.

For some reason, Lancelot frowned at that. He pulled at his nose, then dropped his hand between his knees. “You’re being unusually cooperative.”

“Am I? I’m not being facetious, Lancelot. I am listening.” Arthur shifted so he could better see the other man.

“Well. All right, then.” The other man straightened up and looked Arthur in the eye, and proceeded to do nothing but that for a good thirty seconds. Then he irritably pulled away to turn forwards, pulling at his hair. “For Christ’s sake, how do you do that? All you do is look at me and I—I just can’t—look, obviously it’s your life and you’re the only person who can decide what to do with it, but—but I love you.”

The words came out in a frustrated burst, as if Lancelot had actually meant to slap Arthur, but had thought slightly better of it. Then the other man dropped his face in his hands. He stayed like that for a moment before running his fingers over the top and down the back of his head, tiredly exhaling.

“Right,” Lancelot muttered. He sounded marginally more collected. “I love you, and I’ve decided to go with it and take whatever comes my way because of it, except possibly you going under again. Because that would more or less negate the point of being in love with you, and don’t talk to me about Odysseus’ faithful hound waiting for him to come home.”

Did…had Arthur ever used that metaphor on Lancelot? It sounded vaguely familiar…no, that was because he’d used it as an illustrating example in one of his classes.

“On the other hand, I’d _also_ rather that you didn’t stupidly stick it out and die merely for the sake of proving someone like you should be able to have a normal life, because that’d come up with the same unhelpful result. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no alternative ideas to offer.” With a sigh, Lancelot put his head back in his hands. Then he twisted around to look at Arthur, his mouth quirked in a fairly dark humor. “Well, that came out a little more understandably than I thought it would.”

Arthur gazed at him for a moment; really, the only reasonable thought to have was what Arthur might have done in a past life to deserve that much. But ponderings of that sort weren’t terribly pragmatic, and the current situation seemed determined to require nothing _but_ that.

“I can’t say that I haven’t considered either of those two possibilities as options,” Arthur slowly started.

“Bastard. Don’t you _dare_ \--”

Arthur grabbed Lancelot’s arm and held the other man in place. “But I’ve rejected them.”

Lancelot paused. Then he settled back, picking at his shirt cuffs till they came undone. “Why?”

It was clear from the other man’s face that he wasn’t merely going to assume the best, and frankly, Arthur couldn’t blame him for taking that tack. “Honestly? Joining MI6 again would do no good because I know—and they haven’t accepted—that I’m not mentally fit to make those sorts of compromises with my conscience again. I’d turn on them and I’m not entirely sure whether I’d be able to keep from hurting innocents while doing it.” Arthur lifted his hand to cup Lancelot’s cheek; Lancelot’s eyes briefly dropped, but then rose again to fix Arthur with their steady gaze. “I don’t think you really know what you’ve done to me. I did a very good job of acting like a normal person before I met you and Guinevere, but now I’m not acting.”

“So much?” Lancelot suggested, though more ironically than unkindly. He turned his face into Arthur’s hand and brushed his lips over the hollow of the palm, a whisper that echoed in Arthur’s shiver. “And scenario two?”

“I don’t like the idea of waiting for someone to kill me. Yes, I know, you and Guinevere kid about my martyring tendencies. But that doesn’t seem like martyring—it’s odd, but when it comes down to it, I’d rather die fighting,” Arthur said, trying for wry and probably coming off more melancholy. He shook his head at himself. “And I like to say I have pacifist tendencies.”

Lancelot snorted and started picking at Arthur’s cuffs. He had them unbuttoned in less than a minute, but somehow made the way he shifted over to undoing Arthur’s tie casual. “You’re no hawk, Arthur. So…?”

“So…” Arthur hesitated, wanting to get this said correctly after all the time he’d spent thinking and rethinking over it “…Lancelot, I love teaching and I love being a professor at Avalon. But my work there isn’t what was responsible for giving me back everything I lost to being a covert operative. If MI6 forces me back into their arms, Avalon won’t be the greatest loss in my life.”

He reached over and traced his finger over Lancelot’s neck, following the line of the shirt-collar, and down along the graceful winging collarbones. The other man raised his hand, then lowered it. Then he cursed and pushed at Arthur’s side. “Stop distracting me and…and are you done? I’m not sure I know what you’re saying.”

“Because he just complimented you, you idiot. You never seem to understand those unless they’re about your looks,” Guinevere said. When Arthur turned to see, she smiled sardonically at him from the doorway.

“What—oh.” Lancelot’s hands went still on Arthur. His eyes flashed dark and hot, and then he was pulling furiously at Arthur’s shirt, digging the tails out of Arthur’s trousers and then pushing to straddle Arthur’s lap. “ _Oh_.”

Arthur opened his mouth to clarify himself just in case, but since Lancelot’s tongue promptly inserted itself, that apparently was no longer necessary. He twisted sideways, pulling one leg up on the couch, and grabbed at Lancelot’s waist to steady him just as the other man arched, slow and sweet so his mouth slid up to work on Arthur’s upper lip and his hips rolled forward, provocatively pushing his groin up against Arthur. A glance at Guinevere showed her still at the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and cheeks beginning to flush. She caught Arthur’s eye and grinned, waving back at Lancelot.

“Take off his shirt,” she suggested.

Now sucking at Arthur’s ear, Lancelot made a muffled noise—not quite a protest or an endorsement. Actually, he mostly sounded confused, though he seemed to regain his focus after Arthur had gotten to the third button. His hands came down on Arthur’s hips and he rubbed his face into Arthur’s neck, purring like a cat as Arthur skimmed off the cotton shirt, letting his fingers linger on the silkier skin beneath. Lancelot’s muscles lazily shifted and flexed beneath, seeming to flow along with Arthur’s caresses.

Guinevere had uncrossed her arms and was biting one index finger. She restlessly crossed and uncrossed her legs. “Now let’s see the belt.”

“His or mine?” Lancelot said, languidly easing his way up Arthur. He draped one arm around Arthur’s neck and dangled the belt—when had he gotten that off—over the couch. Then he flipped it at Guinevere.

She snorted and took a few steps into the room, moving so she was standing behind him. Her eyes met Arthur’s and something wicked and fiery flashed between them, something that worked itself deep into Arthur to spread into a restive, liquid feeling that nevertheless was enormously gratifying. He’d _missed_ this—this ease, this ability to turn and bury his cares in the feel and taste and look of them.

He nibbled at Lancelot’s throat and jaw, lightly and not really with any intent except to serve as a contrast when his hands suddenly squeezed down between them and cupped Lancelot’s rising erection. The other man did hiss and jerk, clutching hard at Arthur for just long enough to steal his belt. When Arthur tossed it, Guinevere snatched it out of the air and stretched it between her hands, looking speculatively at it long enough for Arthur to have to suppress a growl in Lancelot’s shoulder.

Lancelot snarled back, his nails scratching at Arthur’s shoulders. He twisted around and glared till Guinevere dropped the belt and stepped back, her hands raised in mock-surrender. Then he turned back and seemed rather startled to find that Arthur had managed to get their trousers down; he gasped and shuddered as Arthur stroked his hands up between his thighs, fingering the way hard muscles turned soft at a touch, pressing palms up towards the thinner skin where the heat burned through more fiercely. Sweat was beginning to dampen the area and it smoothed Arthur’s way as he ran his fingers around Lancelot’s balls and lilted one fingertip up the length of the other man’s flushing prick, his other hand moving down and back to cup one buttock. Lancelot groaned and desperately spread his knees. “Damn it…where’s the…”

“Men,” Guinevere sighed, but her eyes were bright and she’d pulled at her blouse till it hung out of her skirt, loose enough now so when she bent over to hand Arthur what he needed, the gauze drooped to show the white swell of her breasts. “Always starting things where they couldn’t possibly finish them, unless—”

“Thank you, Guin,” Lancelot snapped, hauling himself up for Arthur. He was so eager that he forced himself down onto two fingers when Arthur had only intended one; his face contracted in a grimace and his breath came harshly, but he refused to rise till he’d started to move with the twist of Arthur’s fingers. And even then it was only so he could grab Arthur’s prick in one hand—his hand was cold; Arthur sucked in his breath—and drop himself onto the tip. And hold himself there while Arthur’s hands spasmed on him. Lancelot grinned. “You are _not_ giving this up.”

The coffee table creaked as Guinevere sat down hard on it, eyes bright and lower lip red not from lipstick, but from nervous chewing on it. She hiked up her skirt and put her hand up it, twisting around so a moment later the lace of her panties had been shoved down beneath the hem, and the sheer brazen unconsciousness of it made the breath catch in Arthur’s throat, made him buck a little and then the promising pressure around the tip of his prick made him remember. Lancelot looked a little annoyed, but he never got the chance to voice a protest before Arthur had taken advantage of his hold on the other man and simply pulled down.

“Oh, Christ,” Lancelot gasped.

Arthur didn’t trust himself to be able to say anything useful or meaningful or even coherent, so instead he leaned down and sucked at the point of Lancelot’s shoulder. He dropped his hands to Lancelot’s hips and pushed the other man up, then yanked him down. When he repeated that, Lancelot helped him along. He was biting the other man’s shoulder after the fourth thrust, and after that he lost himself and didn’t know what he was doing because he didn’t know where he ended and the other man began.

His climax was almost shattering the way it forcibly divided them into bodies again; Arthur wrapped his arms around Lancelot and held on tight, trying to forestall the separation a little longer, but Lancelot thrashed too much and Arthur was forced to loosen up. But then Lancelot gasped again, and gave the side of Arthur’s neck a sloppy openmouthed kiss, and the regret lessened.

A disappointed voice penetrated the haze. “Is that all?”

Lancelot grunted, then lifted his head with an effort Arthur could feel, given how it rippled through the man’s whole body. He hissed a little, shooting a satisfied smile at Arthur, and pointedly ground his hips down so Arthur’s prick began to stiffen again inside of him. “Well, if you’re going to sit all the way over there and not even put up a fight about it…” he said, holding up his fingers and cracking his knuckles.

Guinevere huffed and promptly switched to the sofa, perching herself on the sliver available beside Arthur and looping one arm around Arthur’s neck. She leaned up for a kiss, which Arthur was happy to provide and then to take it further so she drew back moaning. “Do something with those instead of just talking about it,” she suggested, glancing contemptuously at Lancelot.

He made a face, then darted his hand down between her legs so suddenly that Guinevere squealed a little and jerked up. Arthur dropped his arm to hold her back and she began to shoot him a mock-betrayed look, only to abruptly gasp and go soft and yielding against him. Her hips began to move.

“Anything else, milady?” Lancelot looked utterly innocent.

Arthur sighed and pushed up into the other man till Lancelot dropped the act to go wide-eyed and shuddering again. Then Guinevere was grasping Arthur’s chin and turning his head for another kiss, and he really had to pay attention to them and only them.

He still wasn’t certain of what he was going to do, but he knew what he wasn’t. And that…that was freeing. That was enough for now, so he wholeheartedly gave himself over.


End file.
